Seattle, WA, June 21, 2017—The Cascadia Poetry Festival is an international event which gathers writers, artists, scientists and activists to collaborate, discover and foster deeper connection between all inhabitants and the place itself. On October 12-15 2017, the 5th festival will take place in Tacoma, WA, at the Washington State History Museum and other venues. (This year marks the first year of a merger of the Cascadia Poetry Festival and the Tacoma Poetry Festival, the latter which was staged twice in Tacoma.)

Michael McClure,CAConrad, Ianthe Brautigan, Patricia Smith, Bruce Weigl, Washington Poet Laureate Tod Marshall, Sharon Thesen, Lucia Misch and Lorna Dee Cervantes are among the confirmed performers/participants. The festival will honor the memory of Richard Brautigan with a tribute on Saturday October 14, and a plaque dedication on Sunday October 15. There will also be a Tribute to Grunge, Friday, October 13, at 10pm, at the Harmon Barrel Room hosted by Hamish Todd. Full schedule at: www.cascadiapoetryfestival.org/2017-schedule/.

A $25.00 Gold Pass provides access to all festival events EXCEPT for workshops, which must be booked separately. (Although there are discounts on some workshops, and some are even free if you buy your gold pass early!) Due to overwhelming demand, workshops will ONLY be open to Gold Pass holders. Tickets can be purchased beginning July 12, 2017 via Brown Paper Tickets: http://cpf5.bpt.me

Admission to single events is $10 at the door.

As in prior incarnations of the festival, Living Room, a free, democratic reading for poets to read their original work in a circle format with other poets, will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 3-5pm.

Saturday’s highlights include a War Poetry/Veterans Panel, Richard Brautigan Life & Legacy Panel. Sunday there are five workshops offered: Patricia Smith: Writing on the Other Side of the Wall, Tod Marshall: Finding Cascadia in Poetry, Laura Krughoff/Renee Simms: Tacoma Writers Resist, CAConrad: Karma Harvest A (Soma)tic Poetry Workshop, and Ianthe Brautigan: Memoir Workshop.

Each night of the festival features main stage readings by distinguished participants, and Michael McClure closes out the festival at 6pm Sunday. An award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark poem “Howl.” A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac’s novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur.

The Cascadia Poetry Festival was founded by SPLAB, a Seattle-based non-profit organization founded in 1993. www.splab.org